Smart Site development continues in county

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Emery Telcom and the Utah Department of Community and Economic Development continue to work together to build opportunities for Emery County through the Smart Site program. On Oct. 1, Emery Telcom was awarded a contract through the DCED to conduct customer satisfaction surveys for the Department of Workforce Services.
Earlier this year Governor Leavitt requested all State department heads to look for opportunities to outsource work to Smart Site companies.The awarding of this survey contract to Emery Telcom is the first project to meet the Governors request.
The Smart Site initiative is part of Governor Mike Leavitt’s 1,000 Day Economic Plan put forth in January of this year. The economic plan has been implemented to foster statewide economic development with an emphasis on providing technology-based employment and business growth in rural areas of the state. “The Smart Site program has an ambitious goal: 1,000 jobs in 1,000 days,” said Wes Curtis, state planning coordinator. “To date, 400 jobs have been created.”
Emery Telcom has participated in the Smart Site program since the concept of rural Smart Sites was initially developed in early 2001. Initially, only nine communities throughout the state were granted the status. Carbon and Emery Counties, both served by Emery Telcom, have locations that are recognized as Smart Sites. Today, 17 Utah communities in the state are classified as Smart Sites.
The purpose of the Smart Site program is to attract high tech job opportunities to rural Utah. The Emery County Smart Site in Orangeville, currently houses Emery Telcom Advertising and the Emery Telcom Call Center. A third business, Digital Mining Solutions, owned by local entrepreneurs Vernon Childs and Don Greenburg, received an $8,500 grant from the Smart Sites program and will be moving into Emery Telcom’s facility within a few months.
Emery Telcom participates in the Smart Site program through two of its subsidiary companies. The first, Emery Telcom Call Center has been in operation since 1995, and it employs 25 local residents. The company’s primary line of work is inbound customer support for a variety of companies across the nation. The company has expanded to offer a number of inbound and outbound telephone services, including customer satisfaction surveys.
The second company, Emery Telcom Advertising, which currently employs seven people, is an advertising and television production company. The firm works with local businesses throughout rural Utah to place television advertisements on national cable TV channels like CNN or ESPN. Employees for the company perform all of the challenging tasks associated with this business at the company’s office locations in Orangeville and Cedar City. Ads are sold, filmed, produced, digitally encoded and then electronically distributed to Cable systems throughout the state.